Remarkable Senior: She didn't think it was cancer, then she didn't think she would see high school

By Emily Sullivanesullivan@jacksonville.com

Monday

Jun 4, 2018 at 7:48 PMJun 5, 2018 at 6:43 AM

Chemo and radiation hit Marsh hard. She hallucinated, dropped 50 pounds in less than a month and had paint buckets from Lowe’s stationed in every room of her home in case her meals came back up. Normally, they did. She lost her hair, embracing the gentle caress of baby shampoo and the glory of baldness.

Courtney Marsh's eyes are round and brown. They served her well until the start of seventh grade, when one morning, she protested to her mother that she couldn’t see clear enough to walk to the school bus.

Marsh, who refused to wear glasses and complained of debilitating headaches, had been hostile and mouthy. Her mother, Jennifer Ballard, was frustrated with it. This was not the daughter she’d raised.

What puzzled Ballard more were the dark purple bruises splattered up and down her daughter’s arms. Marsh refused to tell her mother why she’d been bruising like an overripe peach, and Ballard didn’t understand that her daughter truly had no idea what caused the bruising.

Leukemia isn’t always a seventh-grader’s go-to rationale.

On Saturday, Oct. 6, 2012, Ballard marched her daughter to a shopping mall LensCrafters for a glasses fitting and, she hoped, answers. The optometrist didn’t have an answer yet, but something in the back of Marsh’s eyes struck him.

“It was ugly,” Marsh recalled of her crushed optic nerve. But it explained the migraines, the spotty vision that sent her walking into walls and cherry-red blood gushing from her nostrils.

The diagnosis came Monday, first to Brian Ballard, Marsh’s stepfather. He sat down on Marsh’s hospital bed and looked her in the eyes, which were still just as lively and brown but decorated with a bit more concern. Her younger sister, Dani, with whom she’d been watching “Halloweentown,” had been sent home. “Kid, I’m not gonna lie to you,” he told Marsh.

He remembers her response just as vividly, which was along the lines of, “I have cancer, don’t I?” He broke down in tears.

Ballard got the news her daughter had cancer while she was away on work. Doctors said treatment couldn’t wait the two hours it would take Marsh to fly home through Atlanta, so she gave her consent over the telephone. Ballard didn’t Google anything about leukemia in the airport. She was terrified. She sobbed the whole way to Jacksonville.

Meanwhile, doctors stuck a tube in Marsh’s right thigh and whisked her off to the intensive care unit. She still has the scar from the incision and she can still taste the Tums that nurses kept tossing in her mouth as her blood rushed into the tube and through the dialysis machine.

Chemo and radiation hit Marsh hard. She hallucinated, dropped 50 pounds in less than a month and had paint buckets from Lowe’s stationed in every room of her home in case her meals came back up. Normally, they did. She lost her hair, embracing the gentle caress of baby shampoo and the glory of baldness. She couldn’t stand wigs almost as much as she couldn’t stand glasses. She couldn’t stand up, either, because one medication paralyzed a nerve in her leg.

It was always something, but to this day, Marsh does not accept her experience as “cancer.” Instead, she fondly recalls the people she befriended and the health she restored to herself. She remembers the day doctors told her the cancer was gone. It was around April 2013. “We did it,” she said, adding that she and her mother, her best friend, joined in tears and giggles as a daytime soap opera buzzed in the background.

Marsh began her freshman year at Mandarin High School after completing online coursework and passing proctored exams. Her eyes were often bloodshot and once, her chorus teacher asked if she had come to class stoned.

On May 31, 2018, Marsh graduated in the top half of her class, after making A's and B's her junior and senior years, said Linda Smith, her guidance counselor. Smith swears if all her students shared Marsh’s insight into life’s brevity, the school would be a brighter, more gracious place.

Just a week after high school graduation, Marsh will begin orientation at the University of North Florida. She said she plans to become a child-life specialist, using her story to make others’ trials a little easier.

Marsh said she’ll keep a regular volunteering schedule with Wolfson Children’s Hospital and Nemours Children’s Health Care as long as they’ll let her. She’s already served as an ambassador for kids with cancer, counseling one high school student through her inaugural radiation session. She said she loves the work.

Marsh’s hair has grown back and curls below her shoulders; it’s darker than its initial shade of blond but perhaps thicker than before.

Above rosy cheeks, her eyes are still round and brown, but her peripheral vision’s disappeared. She still can’t stand wearing glasses. Rarely, a black-and-pink pair of square Coach frames stretches from her left ear to her right. She wears contact lenses when she can, and when she’s got them in, she sports 20/20 vision.

With cancer in her past, Marsh looks ahead to a career working with boys and girls battling tough diagnoses. She knows, all too well, what it’s like to hear, “Kid, I’m not gonna lie to you.”

MORE REMARKABLE SENIORS

ARMESHIA ANGLIN

Armeshia Anglin graduated from Bridge to Success Academy at West Jacksonville.

Armeshia is an expectant mother who has faced many obstacles in high school, but the only time she misses school is for medical appointments, said Loietta Holmes, an assistant principal. She is being raised by her grandparents. Although she found her herself well behind peers by high school, her positive work attitude and work ethic helped her meet graduation requirements, Holmes said. Armeshia will be attending Florida State College at Jacksonville this fall.

Raymond came to Frank H. Peterson to join the Robotics and Advanced Manufacturing Academy but he suffered from social anxiety. He couldn't easily talk with people so he kept to himself. His academics suffered and by the end of the first year he was put on an academic contract to stay at the academy, said Jessica Mastromatto, principal. The following year he joined Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northeast Florida and GE Unison, and has had a mentor meet with him monthly. That helped him develop social skills. He also has been volunteering on campus and completing projects for teachers and administrators. He is set to attend FSCJ in the fall and was selected to interview for a career at GE Unison, which makes gas turbine engine ignition systems.

HUNTER HOWELL

Hunter Howell graduated from Allen D. Nease High School in St. Johns County.

After struggles at home and behavioral issues at high school the first two years, Hunter approached D'Erica Gibbs, a guidance counselor, at the beginning of his senior year. "Look, I have messed up in the past. I made a lot of mistakes, but I want to graduate," he said. "What do I have to do?"

Gibbs noted he had a 1.2 grade point average, far below standards to graduate. Together they created an action plan to make up his academic deficiencies and meet graduation requirements. "It was daunting at first and the path has been long, hard and rocky, but Hunter put in all the hard work," Gibbs said. "He has risen above and become a success on his own accord without outside support."

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